


Unexpected Company

by MaskedEmerald



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Clockwork doesn't know what they are doing, Cute, Gen, Gender Neutral Clockwork, Kid Danny Fenton, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25651486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaskedEmerald/pseuds/MaskedEmerald
Summary: Clockwork gets an unexpected guest while waiting for the Observants to stop blocking their sight. They don't really know how to deal with people never mind scared children.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 150





	Unexpected Company

**Author's Note:**

> Hi this was written as part of challenge in a writing group I'm in, just wanted to write some child Danny and how Clockwork handles that. Hope you enjoy this as much as I did!

Clockwork wasn’t used to having company. While from time to time, in fact more often than they would like the Observants would turn up demanding something or other, those arrogant over inflated eyeballs didn’t really count as guests. Aside from that the tower hadn’t played host to anyone but Clockwork for almost an eternity. Especially not the kind of guest they had right now and Clockwork had no idea what they were doing for the first time in just as long. The situation had only begun a couple of mortal hours ago, Clockwork had been glaring frustrated at their viewing screens as they buzzed with static. The Observants were blocking their sight for some probably foolish reason. Clockwork could see nothing but static as they looked through the eras of the timeline. This was one of the worst parts of working for the Observants and there weren’t exactly many good points. For a being like them no matter how frustrating the lost time glaring didn’t really mean much. They would have glared at the screens till their sight was returned if it wasn’t for the small yelp behind them. Clockwork twisted round to find the spark of a closing portal and on the stone floor below it a small child. A child that was getting his breath back. A living child. Clockwork stared. The child sat up on his knees and looked round with confusion on his little face. Something else building in the expression that engulfed everything when blue eyes landed on Clockwork. His breath hitched and he flailed back. The movement sent him tumbling across the floor. Panicked sobs as he tried to push up against the wall. He clung tightly to a small pangolin plush toy. Clockwork frowned at the fact that the child hadn’t just fallen right through the wall. That would have been normal but nothing about this was normal. Clockwork floated closer.

“...Please…” They were sure they heard the child beg. “... don’t… don’t hurt me…”

Afraid, understandable really. They floated over and settled on the floor in front of the boy. They could have just left him be till their sight returned and they could see where he came from but Clockwork felt sorry for him. However Clockwork didn’t know how to deal with children. “If I was going to I already would have.” Clockwork said bluntly.

The child flinched and tried again to scramble away having only just noticed how close Clockwork had gotten. Apparently that wasn’t the right thing to say. In the scramble the boy found his feet. Clockwork rose from the ground ready to try again. The boy bolted. Clockwork sighed and floated after him. Last thing they needed was the child becoming lost in the tower and as a result not getting returned to the timeline.

“... leave me… leave me alone!” He half shrieked once he was again backed into a corner. Clockwork winced at the volume he could reach.

“I’d rather not. It would be less than pleasant to lose track of you. I wouldn’t appreciate finding a skeleton in a few centuries.” Clockwork knew the moment the horrified look crossed the child’s face that they had again messed up. They groaned. How did anyone function without knowing the outcome.

“Please don’t kill me!”

“Seriously? What part of that said that I would have anything to do with that. I expressly said I didn’t want that.” Clockwork sighed, how had he gotten that out of it.

“I… I don’t wanna be here!” He sobbed. “I wanna go home.”

Clockwork held their head, if they could have a headache they were sure they would. “Obviously, however there is nothing I can do about that for the moment.”

There was silence and then. “You… you can’t?” He asked through sobs. “I… don’t wanna be stuck here… here is scary.”

There were far scarier places within the Zone, if anything the child had actually gotten lucky to have ended up here. Even if Clockwork didn’t feel so lucky. “There are worse places you could have ended up. You are not stuck. I have no intention of keeping you here. Once I can you are going to be gone.”

The boy looked up. “You… you’ll let me go home.” Clockwork nodded.

The child was like a pendulum, one moment panicked and afraid. Now he was sobbing into Clockwork’s cloak. Clockwork really didn’t understand children. They floated them back to the other room resulting in the boy tightening his grip the moment they were moving. At least that was normal. Human children didn’t exactly fly. Clockwork set the boy on a bench, his sobs had become sniffles. Clockwork watched the child as he calmed. It took a while. They kept looking back to the screens but still saw static.

“How long do those fools even need.” They growled quietly. The boy thankfully didn’t seem to have heard, he seemed too young to really understand the politics of the Zone and Clockwork didn’t fancy explaining it.

“...You… you’re not bad… not like Mommy and Daddy said?” The child said looking up at them, still afraid. It took Clockwork a moment to realise it was actually a question.

“I suppose not.” Clockwork mused though they had no idea what exactly this child even thought they were. Probably a demon or some other such nonsense.

The child sat there restless as a silence fell. Clockwork had no idea how to keep the child occupied or even that they had to. So they were taken off guard as they had returned to glaring at the screens as the child spoke up.

“Why’d you keep watching the fuzz, fuzz means it needs fixin.” He chirped, the tears gone leaving puffy eyes the only sign of them. Clockwork looked down at the child as he poked at the bottoms of the screens. As high as he could reach. Clockwork wasn’t sure what the feeling they were getting from this was but they liked it.

“They are not broken, however I am waiting. Waiting till I can send you home.” They explained, trying to keep it simple.

The boy frowned. “Is the power off? We don’t normally get fuzz then.”

“Power?” Clockwork raised an eyebrow now again confused by the child.

“Yeah, sometimes if the power’s out Tuck’s mommy won’t take us home till it works. You’re waiting for power?”

Clockwork couldn’t help the laugh. “In a way.” There was some logic to that.

They found themself watching more times than they should have watching the boy instead of the screens, not that anything had changed there. He had gone back to the bench to wait and was now sitting with an alarm clock that had floated past. He was fiddling with the old thing that like him had drifted in from the human world. It didn’t work like a lot of the clocks that found their way to the tower. Clockwork fixed them when they had time however they hadn’t gotten round to that one. Once in the tower they came to represent paradoxes so took more work than a normal clock. They couldn’t help but watch the look of concentration on his face. Clockwork glanced once more to the screens, still nothing. This was going to be a while. Watching them only made it more frustrating. They drifted over to the child, who lent against them as he continued to pick at the clock’s workings.

Clockwork’s sight returned as it always did, all at once with a surge. Every event missed in the mortal world. There was really never any reason to watch the screens, just not normally anything else to do. They clutched their head, the closest thing to a headache they ever got was this.

“Are you okay?” The child asked worried.

Clockwork looked up at them. For a moment they were tempted not to say anything, just for a little more company. They stopped that chain of thought. Even if they could they shouldn’t. The child wouldn’t like it and the Observants wouldn’t either. Not that they cared what the Observants thought. It was time.

“I am fine… however I can now send you home.” Clockwork said rising from the bench.

“Yay!” He hopped up, a smile on his face.

Clockwork found where in time the child had come from quickly and soon there was another more stable portal in the tower. It would lead to the child’s room. He would be home and safe. He looked nervously at the portal. For a moment Clockwork thought he might not leave. Hoped he wouldn’t leave.

“Thank you!” The child hugged them before rushing through the portal eyes closed as if to ignore his fear.

The portal vanished and Clockwork was left alone. Seconds ticked past and then the clock the child had left in their hands after the hug started to ring. Its hands turning. Clockwork stared. Had that child really fixed it. Had he just fixed a paradox. A human child had just fixed a paradox.

“That’s not meant to happen…” Clockwork muttered.


End file.
